So very, very confused and devastated

I didn’t expect to be having to be returning to this site.

I’m so very, very confused about my current situation, because of the unusual and sensitive nature of it. I need to clarify from the beginning that I accept my transgender son for the identity he holds. His gender identity is not in itself an issue: my complete confusion and distress at the abuse he’s been perpetrating against me, however, is.

Some background: my (then) daughter witnessed severe domestic violence against me, and she herself suffered extreme misogyny and coercive control from her biological father for many years until we eventually escaped and started a new life.

My daughter came out as a transgender boy a few years after we had escaped, when she was a teenager. From this point, I referred to her as my son and used he/him pronouns, as he requested, and still do. I will refer to him as such for the rest of this post. He has been an adult for several years now.

Recently, my transgender son physically assaulted me and used serious verbal threats against me.This was not the first time he had assaulted me, but this was the first time that I involved the police.

My son was removed by the police. I had warned him previously that if he physically attacked me again, I would be calling the police. I actually found the strength to carry through with this, something that took a long time, because it’s not the first time he physically assaulted me and I told him this, but because he’s my son, I felt like I couldn’t.
He had assaulted me before, several times, but this time was much worse. It came after a long buildup of abuse that was quite misogynistic in nature.

He was removed by the police again after a second assault, not long after the first time. After talking with the police and a specialist women’s domestic violence team, I made the horribly difficult decision that he can not live here anymore. I need to keep myself safe and he needs to understand that his behaviour is abusive and completely unacceptable.

This whole thing has broken my heart.

It felt like me and the kids were going to be okay after we left. We really were okay, we really were surviving and I honestly thought that my son’s sometimes difficult behaviour (he’s never coped well with being told no) was just normal childhood boundary pushing, and healthy teenage challenging of my authority as a single mother.

I never thought it would end up like this.

My confusion lays with the fact that when he identified as female, he never once called me misogynistic names. He never threatened me. He never behaved as though because I’m a woman, it’s my sole responsibility to do all the housework, cooking and grocery shopping.

He’s had a lived experience as a girl being violently abused by a misogynistic man, who was violently abusing his mum. How can it be that he’s repeating this horrible cycle of abuse? It’s the wording he used against me that really shocks me. Words that you just don’t call your mum, that you don’t call any woman. You just don’t.

The other thing that I’m confused and sadended up being turned away from emergency bed and breakfast accommodation on the grounds that he’s a violent single man.

He’s physically a female still. He hasn’t started testosterone yet and that makes him (in reality) just as vulnerable as a young woman.

I feel so completely confused and distressed.

Because of the political nature of my situation, I feel very isolated.

And I don’t know how to process this.

Because I feel like it would be different if my son wasn’t trans, if he was still my daughter, at least he’d have been found emergency accommodation.

But if he was still my daughter, would the misogynistic abuse even have happened?

If anyone has a similar experience, I would be very grateful for your feedback.

Thank you for reading.